Signatures in webmaster forums

[mikesideas]

I noticed that many people use signature links to their business sites or profit sites in webmaster forums are you not scared that someone will copy you?

A few months ago I had a run in with a very annoying webmaster who was taking everything I did, it’s so easy to do and Google was ranking his spun articles higher than my unique articles.

I find it interesting that so many people are willing to share their networks with other people in the same line of business.

Are you doing something to protect yourself? Please explain why you are happy to drop a link to your network on pages full of internet marketers.
I am not saying signature links are bad or anything like that, I think they are a good way to advertise but the fear kind of shifts the benefit if you see what I mean.

Do you use sites that are not connected to you and untraceable to your network? Do you use tier sites?

My friend had me laughing last night, I said I was thinking about using signatures in forums and he just burst out laughing saying those guys are his bread and butter, all he does is find the forum users with the most posts, takes a link from their network, and within a few minutes he has every link pointing to the persons whole network, including hundreds of domains, all he then does is make a few sites of his own in the same niche. He does no keyword research, he lets everyone else do it for him, it’s quite clever but not nice but this is the guy who is running hundreds of sites and earning lots of money so I listen to him.

He targets users with the most posts because he has more chance of finding professional networks / sites rather than armature users just starting out.

Listening to this last night totally changed my mind he went into much more detail but that’s the basics I am just very keen to learn the ways of how you protected yourself against people like this, I asked him and he said there is no protection, he said they can run but they can’t hide is this true?

I would be happy to hear another point of view

[philvault]

OP is afraid of the competition. As long as you're dropping links, you're vulnerable. Nothing can be done about it. It's how you please your customers or find quality backlinks that separates you from the copycats

[mikesideas]

Originally Posted by philvault

OP is afraid of the competition.

Of course I am afraid the first rule of business is to protect your investment

[philvault]

Originally Posted by mikesideas

Of course I am afraid the first rule of business is to protect your investment

So true. And what about those sites like majestic seo or blekko giving out your precious backlinks history to your competitors. Aren't we supposed to be afraid of them too?

[tonybacker]

One of the ways of marketing through forums is to include the affiliate link in the signatures of the forums. Inclusion of affiliate links in the signatures is a very effective method of affiliate marketing and the most popular role of forums in affiliate marketing.
But we need to be careful after recent panda update and avoid negative SEO.

[kausik_acumen]

tony, can you please explain how signature turn into negative SEO? Its not clear to me. But its true, you by using any signature link you are exposing your business and strategies to every one. So its have both positive and negative effect.

[mikesideas]

Originally Posted by philvault

So true. And what about those sites like majestic seo or blekko giving out your precious backlinks history to your competitors. Aren't we supposed to be afraid of them too?

I’ve not heard of these Phil but I will take a look now

[mikesideas]

Originally Posted by Aw1

I don't get what you mean by "he has every link pointing to the persons whole network, including hundreds of domains, all he then does is make a few sites of his own in the same niche."

Can you elaborate on what exactly he's doing? To me it doesn't sound like he's really doing anything.

let’s say it took you 10 years to establish your sites, think of all the ideas, find all the places to do guest posts, and find webmasters willing to share links, all the things you did to get were you were today someone can take in just a few moments. In a webmasters forum people tend to have a site which is a good starting point, with one site you can more belonging to the same person, if this person visits a webmaster forum daily and they have done for some time there is a good chance they know a thing or two about making money from sites.

Kind of like loan data, you want people who have had loans, it’s targeted, this is extremely targeted, but in this case you want people who are make money online all this can be checked using a number of different ways. This is not really my thing but I can see why it works, if someone was really set for a quick money operation, in one forum I guess they could find at least 100+ members who are actually making money with their websites, this would lead to let’s say 3 sites each that are doing well, 300 new niches, content, links, artwork, keywords plus all the time that went into re searching it.

I have never done it, but I think that could be done in under 7 days, let’s say 99% fail still leaves you with a few.

[alsoyoutube]

quick question, do signatures on this forum count as backlinks?

[Bob Barr]

Originally Posted by tonybacker

One of the ways of marketing through forums is to include the affiliate link in the signatures of the forums. Inclusion of affiliate links in the signatures is a very effective method of affiliate marketing and the most popular role of forums in affiliate marketing.
But we need to be careful after recent panda update and avoid negative SEO.

Please note: Don't even think about posting an affiliate link in your sig here at v7n. Doing that's specifically prohibited by the forum rules.

[shakir]

Originally Posted by alsoyoutube

quick question, do signatures on this forum count as backlinks?

quick answer yes will counted.....

[toronto]

Originally Posted by tonybacker

One of the ways of marketing through forums is to include the affiliate link in the signatures of the forums. Inclusion of affiliate links in the signatures is a very effective method of affiliate marketing and the most popular role of forums in affiliate marketing.
But we need to be careful after recent panda update and avoid negative SEO.

You clearly don't read the rules and guidelines do you! Many people think forums are stupid and just allow you to spam while including signatures with affiliate links in order to build backlinks. That's only ruing and bringing down the forum with useless post. So like mentioned already its not allowed however I'm sure you can include upto two links to your websites in your signatures.

[Bob Barr]

Originally Posted by toronto

You clearly don't read the rules and guidelines do you! Many people think forums are stupid and just allow you to spam while including signatures with affiliate links in order to build backlinks. That's only ruing and bringing down the forum with useless post. So like mentioned already its not allowed however I'm sure you can include upto two links to your websites in your signatures.

Links to your sites are certainly allowed. The selling of your links and posting affiliate links are prohibited by v7n rules.